


The Fools Rush in Raid

by Murasaki99



Category: The Rat Patrol
Genre: Gen, Snakes, Western Desert Campaign, in a pickle, legless reptiles, not Dietrich's fault, wildlife of the desert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 18:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30076617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murasaki99/pseuds/Murasaki99
Summary: Hauptmann Dietrich took advantage of a natural rock formation to shelter his small command from a raging sandstorm.  This worked fine until dawn, when it became apparent the area was already claimed by some exotic desert wildlife.   The Rat Patrol arrives just in time to... help?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	The Fools Rush in Raid

“Don’t come any closer, Sergeant!” _Hauptmann_ Dietrich’s voice carried over the noise of their jeeps as the Rat Patrol drove toward his camp. On the other side of a semicircular wall of large, rugged rocks gapped with openings, the German captain’s men were grouped away from their commanding officer. Many of the soldiers were busily tossing their gear into trucks, while some were sitting atop the vehicles as if they were reluctant to touch the ground. 

Dietrich waved as if trying to shoo them off. 

“ **Get Away**!” He sounded strained, as if he had been shouting for some time and his voice was starting to fail.

The jeeps looped around the preoccupied Afrika Korps troops to drive closer to Dietrich. They stopped about twenty yards off. Troy stood up for a better view over the rocky rampart. The Captain was standing with his legs a little apart, almost in a parade rest stance, although he did not seem at all relaxed. Dietrich made no move to take cover or run off, nor did he draw his pistol. His men watched the Rat Patrol approach with shouts of alarm, but no one pulled a gun or fired up the tank or halftracks. 

“What’s the matter?” Troy called. “Mines?” Both sides used them to try and limit the mobility of their enemies, but when the lines of skirmish shifted and maps of mined areas were misplaced, those same weapons became hazards to everyone. 

“Not mines,” said Dietrich in a somewhat normal volume now that the jeeps were standing still.

“Well, what?” asked Troy. 

Leaping out of the jeep, the American sprang over the stone wall, marching toward the captain with long strides. He was well over halfway to his destination when Moffitt shouted at him.

“Troy! **Stop**! Snakes!”

“What!?” Something moved on the periphery of his vision near his feet. On instinct, Troy closed the gap between himself and Dietrich in several long leaps.

Dietrich glared at him in frustration. The pupils of his brown eyes were wide, making them darker than normal despite the bright sunlight. As soon as Troy was in range, he caught the American by the shoulders and held him still.

“Honestly Sergeant, have you never heard the phrase, ‘fools rush in where angels fear to tread’? Now, since by some miracle we are not yet dead, do not move, and look down.” 

“Moffitt said there were snakes. I…” Troy stared at the sandy ground on which he stood. A patch of sand moved, uncoiled, and slithered away in a lithe sideways motion. He twitched a little in spite of himself and saw at least three more reptiles stir at the vibration. They were too close for comfort. Some produced fizzing sounds, like bacon on a hot griddle. One of them opened its mouth, armed with long fangs, and hissed. It settled down when Troy froze in place. 

“What in--!” He scanned the area. The sand around them undulated. “Captain, this place is crawling with them!”

“You fool, I told you to stay away!”

“Well, yeah, you did try to tell me.” Troy’s grin was apologetic. “I should’ve listened.”

Dietrich uttered a combination of snort and sigh.

“You are so _starrköpfig_ , Sergeant. I tried to warn you. You may consider yourself lucky, since you made it this far without being bitten, but now we are _both_ trapped.”

Troy looked at the German officer. _I’ve heard that tone in your voice exactly once, when we were about to die_.

“How the hell did you end up clean in the middle of them?” The American flung his hands out at the reptiles. “You usually have more sense.” He collected himself and added the courtesy. “Captain.”

Dietrich chose to accept the distraction offered by the blunt question and comment. He pointed toward the natural ring of cover provided by the broken rock formations. They encircled a slightly concave central area, deceptively promising a safe campsite. 

“We took shelter here last night during a sandstorm. It was not until dawn and better visibility that we realized our error. I was awakened by screams, which are not a standard alarm. One of my soldiers had found a snake in his tent and could not control his reaction. It was just as well he roused the company, although in the ensuing disruption, two of my men were bitten, and now need treatment. 

“We were striking the camp from the edges inward as quickly and carefully as we could. My tent was here, near the center. At first, in the cold morning air, the snakes were sluggish, but with sunrise they became quite lively. I was able to pass my tent to my men, but by then the creatures had warmed and grown a little too active to move around safely through them.” Dietrich breathed deeply. His khaki shirt was soaked in places with sweat, an outward sign of the strain he was under.

“I’ve been trying to convince my men to leave a car, take the injured, and get everyone to an aid station before those who have been bitten become worse, but they are reluctant to abandon me.” 

From the cluster of trucks, _Stabsfeldwebel_ Gunther and _Leutnant_ Erhardt stared at him stubbornly, their expressions brought to Dietrich’s mind camels who disapproved of their rider’s actions. Unlike the camels, they did not vent their emotions by spitting at people. _Thank goodness for that_ , he thought.

Troy barked a short laugh.

“You were gonna stand here in this viper pit alone till nightfall? I know you’re brave, Captain, but that’s more like a crazy stunt I’d try.” He shook his head, smiling at the thought.

Dietrich shot Troy a sharp glance. 

“Was that a complement?” He shrugged and watched as a snake fluidly draped itself over his instep for a moment before it moved off. “It is one way to extract myself safely. Boring, but effective.”

“Yeah, _safe_ as long as you don’t pass out from sunstroke and fall on them,” said Troy. 

Dietrich’s face took on a tight expression. 

“I had not considered that risk in the moment.”

“How about we get away before that happens?” Turning his head toward the jeeps and the rest of the Rat Patrol, Troy raised his voice. “Hey, Professor! What about these snakes?”

“Egyptian saw-scaled vipers,” called Moffitt. “Very dangerous.”

“Thanks,” Troy said. “Kind’a figured that out. Anything else?”

“They typically make buzzing sounds to warn off the unwary by coiling up and scraping their scales together.” Moffitt’s fingers traced a circular motion in the air. “Legends say Cleopatra may have used them to commit suicide because of their strong poison. It’s very rare to see so many in one area,” he added. “They aren’t social animals at all. I’d say they were attracted to a large colony of desert rats or other rodents nesting in those rocks. An easy meal is rare out here.”

“Don’t be foolish, Sergeant.” Dietrich smiled suddenly. “You are all far too large to be considered food by these creatures.” Terrible as the situation was, having the company of people with clever minds made him feel marginally better. 

Troy groaned.

“Very funny, Captain.”

Hitch began to laugh loudly, earning an odd look from Tully. 

“You OK?” he asked.

“Snakes are not my favorite animal,” Hitch admitted. He shuddered like a horse trying to twitch away flies. Similar to half of Dietrich’s men, the American was paler than usual under his tan. “If I could, I’d be standing on the tallest of the Captain’s armor over there to keep away from them.” 

Moffitt eyed the Germans perched atop their vehicles. 

“You might have to negotiate for space.”

“I’m not too fond of the poisonous ones myself,” Tully admitted. He kept a wary eye on the writhing sand of the campsite. “Around my home farm in Kentucky you had to watch out for copperheads down by the creek.” He smiled at Hitch. “They were pretty mean and would chase you if you got too close… or shot at them with slingshots.” His smile grew mischievous. 

“Great, Tully,” growled Troy. “Now, since you’re not spooked by ‘em, how about helping Moffitt figure a way to get us out of here, or else get _them_ out of here so we can walk away?”

“Without being bitten, I assume?” asked Moffitt. The Englishman tapped his chin as he considered the problem. The snakes wriggled, half-buried in sand, leaving swirled patterns behind that would have been aesthetically interesting if the artists were not so hazardous.

“That should be an obvious requirement,” said Dietrich, watching a viper loop its way around and over his toes. Two others were having a territorial dispute over Troy’s boots. To his credit, the American ignored them. 

“C’mon, I really don’t wanna stand here in a nest of rattlers all day,” said Troy, putting his fists on his hips. He favored the Englishman with a stern look. 

“Quite,” said Moffitt. “Although these are not exactly your standard Western rattlesnakes.”

“We could just shoot ‘em,” said Hitch, jerking a thumb toward the .50 machine gun mounted on his jeep. “Clear a path.”

“Mm, not such a good idea,” said Moffitt. “You’d risk hitting Troy and Dietrich, and you’ll spook the entire lot into flight.”

“And make ‘em mad,” said Tully. “Once you start, the snakes aren’t gonna hold still.”

“Can we rig some way to pull them up and out before the snakes know what’s going on?” Now that he was engaged with the problem, the Ivy Leaguer looked happier and less like he was about to be ill. 

“The long barrel on the _panzerjager_ , that tank hunter over there, might do,” said Moffitt, nodding at the sand-blasted _Sturmgeschütz_ III[1] parked on the other side of the snake-filled campsite. “There’s only one problem – we’d have to drive it around here and work it close, and it’s not exactly a quiet or vibration-free machine.”

“Yeah, and you’d probably run over a few snakes around the edges as you got closer, and that would rile them up,” said Tully. 

“NO snake stampedes,” said Troy, keeping his voice as steady as possible. The back of his neck prickled at the thought. 

“The pathway idea is a good one,” said Dietrich. He sternly suppressed a shudder at the mental image of all the legless reptiles fleeing around their position _en masse_. He looked toward his small command, most of whom were sitting high on their respective machines to avoid any outlying vipers.

“Too bad we can’t roll out a big red carpet like they do in Hollywood for the stars,” said Hitch, turning his hands forward. “Cover ‘em up just long enough for Sarge and the Captain to run out.”

“Canvas might do,” said Dietrich. He had been listening closely to the conversation.

“Canvas?” Troy looked at him curiously. “Take too long to cut up tents.”

“No need, we have several large bundles of the material.” Dietrich’s mouth quirked in a wry smile. “We were supposed to receive food and petrol. Instead, they sent enough canvas to cover a circus.”

“Heavy canvas?” Moffitt nodded. “That would do nicely. Should give you enough protection, provided you don’t linger.”

“Give us a path and we’ll be outta here in two seconds,” said Troy. He grinned at his companion. “You’re a pretty fast runner when you need to be, Captain.”

“We **do** have incentive to move quickly,” Dietrich replied. It was not a good time to start a long discussion with Troy about those days where he had found it necessary to make sprints away from exploding munitions and other Rat Patrol-caused disasters.

“All right,” said Troy. He shaded his eyes to look across the bright sand toward Dietrich’s company. “I can send Moffitt, Hitch, and Tully over there to get the canvas and set things up.”

“One moment, Sergeant, we must discuss terms, first.”

“Terms? Now!?” 

“Now. Quickly,” said Dietrich. 

Troy looked at the captain’s unhappy company and his own men, who looked equally worried. “You want a truce?”

“Of course. I will have Sergeant Gunther, and several of our men who are not completely terrified of snakes, help you carry, roll up, and then roll out the sections of canvas so we can make a safe exit from here.”

“That sounds fine to me, Captain. And then?”

“Then, we regroup and go our separate ways.”

“And never mention this again except when we’re drunk?” Troy grinned. 

“Exactly.” Dietrich squinted thoughtfully at him. “Very drunk.”

“Yeah. First chance we get, let’s do that.”

“Very good.” Turning his head toward his men, the Captain called out.

“ _Leutnant_ Erhardt! _Unteroffizier_ Gunther!”

“Sir!” The two men answered in near-unison. Switching to German, Dietrich relayed his orders, requesting the canvas be brought over to the men of the Rat Patrol, along with several soldiers who could help to manhandle the heavy fabric. The two men looked relieved to be given a chance to extract their captain from the trap. 

“Yes sir, at once!” they called. After hasty salutes, they ran for the large trucks used to carry the bulk of their gear. Gunther shouted orders to the company soldiers and Erhardt directed them to the appropriate trucks. Quickly, the bundles of canvas were offloaded and carried over by the men, accompanied by Gunther, who guided them away from any suspiciously rippled sandy areas. Once they arrived at the jeeps, Tully and Hitch helped them first unfold the canvas, stretch it out, and roll it up, while Moffitt and Gunther conferred on the best way to interlayer the canvas pieces to form one large unit. 

A new thought occurred to Dietrich as he waited.

“Sergeant.”

“Yes, Captain?” Troy returned his attention to his companion.

“I would like to have Lieutenant Erhardt take the _kubelwagen_ and the two soldiers who have been bitten and start for our aid station.” He nodded at the company’s collection of vehicles. “The longer they must wait for treatment, the lower their chances of survival.”

“Yeah, snakebite is bad like that,” said Troy. “How far away are your medics?”

Dietrich closed his eyes briefly as he thought about the path his men would take to the current position of their medical unit, or _Sanis_. 

“Three hours is my best estimate.”

“Three hours!? That’s too long,” said Troy. “How long have they been sitting here?”

“An hour,” said Dietrich. He rubbed his palms absently against his breeches.

“No good.” 

“I _know_ that, but it is the best I can do.” The captain’s face was pained.

Troy looked at him calmly. 

“Give ‘em to us.”

“What?”

“Once we’re outta this snake pit, we’ll take your men to our medics. We’ve got a field hospital set up maybe fifteen minutes away. It’s where we were heading when we found your group. If you were this close, I’m kind’a surprised you didn’t drive into ‘em during the sandstorm.” _Bet you were looking to scout our lines before the storm hit,_ Troy thought, _except Mother Nature had other plans_.

“That might have been better than camping here,” said Dietrich. “If somewhat awkward.”

“I know the doctor there, Captain Gabe Adams. He’s from the West like me an’ he knows how to treat snakebite.” Troy looked at Dietrich, his face determined. “It’ll be all right. Gabe’s a good man, he’ll take care of your men like he would our own.”

“But after…”

“Well, they’re not gonna be any use to you for some time,” said Troy. The American shrugged his shoulders. “It can take weeks to recover, depending on where they got bit, and what treatment they need.” The sergeant’s blue eyes were intense. _And how much venom they got, but I’m sure you know that_. 

“Trust me, you don’t want to make them wait, Captain. With our Western rattlesnakes, people would lose fingers, toes, hands… assuming it doesn’t kill you right away, the venom’s like acid and destroys muscle.” He turned a thumb down at the snakes resting near his feet. “These things remind me of them.”

“Actually, they are worse,” called Moffitt helpfully as he worked at rolling up the canvas with their assembled team. “They have multiple poisons, a neurotoxin along with... “

“Thanks, I didn’t need to hear that!” Troy shouted back. 

“Nor I,” said Dietrich. “But I must agree with you, I would rather my men be alive and in Allied custody, than dead.” He smiled a little and raised an eyebrow at Troy. “Alive, they may be retrieved later.”

“One thing at a time, Captain,” Troy replied with a grin. _I’m going to have to keep an eye on Gabe’s camp, if I can, for the next couple of weeks_ , he thought. _Be kind of nice if I could round up the whole group._

\---

“This is perfect!” Hitch smiled in approval as their combined crew wrestled the heavy mass of tightly rolled canvas into place between two of the large rocks forming the periphery of the abandoned campsite. “It’s a little downhill to the center of the clearing where Sarge and the Captain are standing, so if we give it a good shove, gravity should take care of the rest.”

After Moffitt translated for the Germans, Sergeant Gunther nodded, and held out his arm to check the planned trajectory of their “red carpet”. 

“A strong push is necessary to start,” he said. “We do not want it to roll halfway and then stop.”

“Yes,” Moffitt agreed, making the English translation for his comrades. “It would be tricky to dash out there and start it rolling again.”

Tully eyed the snakes. 

“Tricky is right. Worse’n trying to explain why you have two girlfriends to each of them.”

That translation made the Germans laugh. 

“ _Herr Hauptmann_ and your Sergeant will only want to traverse that path once. We will do it right the first time,” said Gunther, pushing up his sleeves to reveal an impressive set of biceps. “I will help.” 

“Agreed,” said Moffitt. “We will also need to hold on to the edge here to keep it from moving once it has unrolled.”

A few moments later the men had lined up behind the canvas and at Moffitt’s signal, heaved in unison to start their creation into motion. Once it was rolling, they grabbed or stood on the edges to keep their end of the pathway stable.

“Here it comes!” shouted Hitch. “Right on target!”

“I think they used a little too much canvas,” said Troy. He watched with wide eyes as the ‘carpet roll’ careened toward them like a juggernaut, bouncing over rocks and snakes alike. The size of it **was** diminishing as it unspooled, just not fast enough for comfort.

“We had a large supply,” said Dietrich. He was equally worried over the size of the oncoming object. “They have used all of it.” The canvas bounded closer, still forming a tight bundle nearly two feet in diameter. He drew a deep breath. 

“Prepare to jump… Now!”

Just as the canvas reached their spot, the two men performed credible standing jumps. The canvas drove under them and continued on, finally petering out fully fifteen feet behind them. They landed on the tough fabric, but quickly discovered that while the snakes were covered, it did not mean they were easy to step over. The lumpy canvas carpet offered an uncertain pathway. 

“This’s like a funhouse floor!” Troy staggered as he fought to find his balance on the treacherous footing. “Those things spun or tilted when you walked on ‘em.”

“If that is real, it does not sound _fun_ at all,” said Dietrich. Gritting his teeth, he grabbed Troy’s right shoulder to steady him before he could fall over the side of their pathway and linked their arms. “March in broken step with me, Sergeant, and we will cross this bridge safely.”

Somewhat slowly at first, they paced forward, moving with greater speed as they adapted to each other’s stride length.

“Quickly, _Mein Herr_!” Gunther shouted. Confused snakes were already crawling out from under the canvas edges, looking around for someone to blame for the disruption to their routine. 

“And don’t fall down,” Hitch added. 

“Easy for you to say!” Troy replied. 

Finally managing to get in complementary sync with the Captain, Troy was able to increase his pace to a full run. The last yard of pathway sported one viper resting halfway on the canvas, trying to get its bearings.

“Jump!” called Gunther. 

Troy and Dietrich hurdled the last stretch above the snake, which slithered off without trying to strike at them, apparently uninterested in the humans making their escape. Gunther and Moffitt pulled the two men well away from the canvas, up to the jeeps.

Gunther inspected them both quickly, but saw no obvious bite marks.

“ _Geht es Ihnen gut, mein Herr_?”

Dietrich nodded, still breathing hard. “ _Es geht_.”

“We are both well,” he added as he caught his breath. It wasn’t that the sprint itself had been so strenuous, but he was feeling the accumulated strain of holding very still for well over an hour under the threat of a painful death. His heartbeat was a runaway horse at full gallop. He took a few seconds to breathe slowly and deeply, and finally felt his pulse return to near-normal.

“Thank you, everyone, for your quick actions,” said Dietrich. He relayed some instructions in German to Gunther, which raised Moffitt’s eyebrows. Gunther saluted and ran off toward their cluster of vehicles, trailed by his canvas-wrangling team. 

“You are giving us some of your men?” asked the Englishman.

“Yeah, he is,” said Troy. “He’s got two guys with snakebite an’ our medics are practically over the next hill, while theirs are hours away.”

“Ouch. Very good,” said Moffitt. “You do know, Captain, that while checking them in is easy, extracting them later may be a bit more problematic.”

Dietrich smiled at the Rat Patrol.

“I understand, Sergeant Moffitt. As long as your medical unit is not placed in the middle of a snake pit, I look forward to the challenge.”

“Remember what you told me, Captain? ‘Fools rush in…’”

“’Where angels fear to tread.’ Yes indeed, Sergeant Troy.” Dietrich’s smile grew wider. “Which are we?”

Tully snorted and Hitch chuckled. When Troy turned to glare at them, he saw identical silly grins on their faces. A glance at Moffitt confirmed Troy’s suspicion the man was trying without full success to suppress a similar expression.

“Wise guys,” muttered Troy. “All right, let’s get the Captain’s men loaded up and get out of here. I’ve had enough snakes to last a lifetime!”

“Several lifetimes,” Dietrich agreed.

“What about the canvas?” Tully nodded at their ‘red carpet’, still undulating busily from the reptiles beneath. Some of the bolder creatures had crawled atop the cloth and were sunning themselves.

Dietrich shook his head. 

“Best retrieved at midnight in the winter months.” 

“Or never,” said Troy. 

“Afraid I would not sleep easy under that material, since I know where it’s been,” said Moffitt. “And I do not consider myself phobic about snakes.” 

“Maybe we can find a circus who would take it?” said Tully.

Troy laughed at that. 

“Sure Tully, we’ll find Barnum and Bailey’s Big Top[2] right next to the fools an’ angels.”

###

[1] The “ _panzerjager_ ” or “tank hunter” looks like a tank, but does not have a rotating turret. Built to lie in ambush and pot-shot enemy tanks. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmgesch%C3%BCtz_III>

[2] From Wikipedia: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Barnum & Bailey Circus, Ringling Bros., Barnum & Bailey or simply Ringling was an American traveling [circus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus) company billed as The Greatest Show on Earth. It and its predecessor shows ran from 1871 to 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringling_Bros._and_Barnum_%26_Bailey_Circus>

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to my beta readers J Mace and RK MacBride. And more thanks to RK MacBride for the title and corrections to my attempts at German language bits.


End file.
